Red Velvet Cupcakes

Sometime in November last year, Nena and I decided we’d stay in and bake. We were so looking forward to baking rainbow cupcakes, but because we couldn’t find some of the ingredients (such as gel food colouring – let me know if any other forms of food colouring can be used for rainbow cakes), we settled on red velvet cupcakes.

Before we go further, I need to say that neither of us have baked red velvet cupcakes before this. It was a first attempt, and it was highly risky for two amateurs to take on this task. But I guess things turned out better than expected.

The second thing I need to tell you guys is that we didn’t have an electric mixer. So everything was mixed by hand. Exhausting but worth it, I guess!

We looked up a random red velvet recipe online while grocery shopping. It seemed simple enough to follow, and so we based our purchases on the ingredients listed. It was all pretty impromptu.

We followed the recipe pretty closely despite having to make a few changes along the way. For example, if I recall correctly, we had to add in more food colouring because the batter didn’t seem red enough. We also added more sugar to the frosting.

At first we baked using pretty cupcake liners, but after our first batch flopped (big time), we did the next few batches without the liners. Not only were they easier to remove from our silicon cupcake tray, the cupcakes were also bigger.

Another reason why our first batch failed was because the baking duration indicated in the recipe was 18-22 minutes. Not only was it rock hard, but it was also very burnt. So the next batch onwards, we cut the baking time by half – just 9 minutes! And they turned out perfect.

I guess the best part of baking these cupcakes was the frosting and decorating part! We made a piping bag and filled it with the cream cheese mixture we made – and started swirling it all over the cupcakes! And staying true to the initial idea of rainbow cupcakes, we scattered rainbow pebbles and sprinkles over the frosting. And here’s the end result: